All of Time and Space
by nameless and forgotten
Summary: Idris - all the Doctor knows is her name, but the TARDIS has been inside her head and he will do everything in his power to show her the stars before she dies alone on the junkyard planet.


**A/N:** I'd give anything to get Idris back on Doctor Who and since sadly it's not likely to actually happen I had no choice but to write it myself.

* * *

_Idris._

_Her name was Idris. She was a person before they sucked her consciousness out of her body and put you in there. She was innocent... and there was nothing I could have done to save her. Right, old girl? Nothing to save her... but we could find her - find her before she ends up on the junkyard planet._

_All I know is her name, but you... you've been inside her head. You exist across all time and space. You can find her, can't you? You said it yourself, you always took me where I needed to go..._

_Well, she needs me now. She deserves to see the stars._

.

The TARDIS landed with a bump, wobbling slightly before it found its footing. They were alone together again - the boy and his box - having dropped off Amy and Rory back on earth, in their own timeline. The doctor had not put in any coordinates for landing; he had, in fact, not even had a destination in mind and had expected a quiet day, floating in space until some adventure or other appeared. But, as it seemed, the TARDIS had other plans. He glanced at one of the control's many little screens, very briefly checking the planet's atmospheric properties, before exiting his box quite unprepared.

He did not need anyone to tell him that the planet ha had landed on was New New New London. New New New London, also known as New Victoria - where the skyscrapers rose high, high into the sky, sparkling and glittering in the sun, steam powered transport flitting back and forth between the buildings, but down below, in the neverending shadow of progress, there was the other side of the city. Wrapped in perpetual gloominess, the other half of the population lived, in make-shift huts and little run down houses that had been abandoned for bigger and better things by their previous owners. The divide between rich and poor was startling - any kind of middle class had ceased to exist ages ago and while the rich could fall, all the way to the dim existence of the poor, it was virtually impossible to ever climb up the social ladder and the paths of rich and poor hardly ever crossed. Government was practically nonexistent - it had become an organisation that served mainly as flagship. Its officials were corrupted to the bone and would do anything for the right price; no one had a thought to spare for social capacities. And so the lower class had become a society of its own. Some managed to thrive, controlling part of the blackmarket trade, others withered and led miserable lives.

Today, it seemed, the Doctor had been dropped right in the middle of the dark alleys of the bad part of town. Taking a couple of steps forward, he found himself stumbling over bits and pieces of discarded technology - brass and wires sticking out on all ends, coil springs... an old toaster? Unable to resist temptation, he crouched down and waved his sonic screwdriver over the collection of scattered objects. When the lights of an undefined appliance gave a weak flickering, the Doctor picked it up, twisting and turning it in his hands curiously as he continued walking at a slow pace.

"Thief!"

The word reached his ears, quite unexpectedly, sending shivers down his spine. Had he really heard someone say that or was he imagining things? Standing unmoving, his eyes flickered to the dark corner where he had left the police box.

"You're a thief!"

He heard the voice again, distinctively; this time he turned, and promptly dropped the device he was holding. A figure was approaching, face covered in grime, hair standing up on all sides, and although several mismatched layers of clothing covered the body, the Doctor recognized the female form in it. Could it be...?

As the woman came closer, a pair of dark eyes, glowing with contempt, confirmed his suspicions and her name slipped off his lips just as the words of her lecture (which seemed to have been brewing for quite some time) started raining down on him.

"You... you people! You think you can just drop in down here and help yourself to whatever pleases you! Well you can't - you threw all these things away and now they belong to -"

Her string of words tore off as her brain processed the whispered name she had barely caught earlier. "How..." Her eyes grew wide as she tried to form a sentence, stunned into near speechlessness. "How did you know my name?"

"Idris," the Doctor repeated, as a smile broke out on his face. All of time and space and the TARDIS had actually managed to find her, he thought, impulsively reaching out to hug her. "It really is you!"

While he happily buried his nose in the masses of her hair and breathing in deep, detecting under a mixture of metal and grime the unique scent that would always remind him of the day he spent with his TARDIS, it took him more than a second or two to realize how rigid the woman in his arms had become. Awkwardly letting go, he attempted to secure his hands in his pockets; failing to do so, he opted for clutching them together behind his back, while trying to think of a plausible explanation for hugging a random strangers.

"I, uh..." was all he managed to say in a rare moment of speechlessness. He felt the heat creep onto his cheeks under the blazing eyes of the woman he only knew as Sexy, the TARDIS and realized that that might very well turn out to be a problem. After all he had no idea what the real Idris was capable of... He took another precautionary step back, still failing to formulate a coherent sentence.

"Since you already seem to know my name - Who the hell are you?"

It was Idris who broke the silence between them at last, watching the Doctor put distance between them while she kept her ground. That question seemed enough for him to collect himself, and, straightening his shoulders and storing his sonic screwdriver in his breast pocket, he swept back his hair before offering a hand.

"I am the Doctor."

His grand introduction fell flat, as Idris plainly ignored his hand and simply continued frowning. "Doctor who?"

"Just... the Doctor," he tried to explain, letting his hand drop, then quickly deciding to change the topic: "So... all this -" his arms flew up in an uncoordinated gesture indicating his surroundings, "junk... belongs to you?"

As the words passed his lips, he knew they had been a mistake. The flames of fury in Idris' eyes flickered again as she set out for another lengthy lecture. "This junk... This JUNK, as you call it-" The Doctor thought her anger rather endearing and it turned out to be quite hard to keep himself from smiling. He liked the real Idris already.

"If you must know, it's how I make my living." Her voice had calmed suddenly – she had regained her composure, but was still glaring at him suspiciously. "People pay good money for the things I make out of this junk," Idris informed him, raising her head a little higher and placing her hands on her hips.

"You're a Tinker! Amazing!" The Doctor exclaimed, rather excitedly. _What a beautiful creature_, he thought, smiling even wider; forgetting, for a moment, that he had already witnessed the demise of her innocent body, long after her mind had been forced out. The idea of the thought flickered across his mind and his eyes clouded for a moment. Instantly, he shook the sadness off, attempting to focus instead on the mountains of _useful_ waste material. It was Idris herself who saved the moment from turning into an awkward silence.

"Did you say... The Doctor?"

It seemed a penny had dropped. Every now and again, the Doctor knew, people had heard of him before. Most of the time, however, they were scholars, historians, but Idris seemed like a rather unlikely candidate to him. Watching her carefully, he nodded slowly, apparently confirming whatever suspicions she had.

"I've heard stories of you," she informed him. "Nobody believed they were actually true... I always did." The addition after the slight pause was shy and quiet, not at all matching the image of the person he had just started getting to know.

"I was always hoping that one day the man with the blue box would find me and show me the universe," Idris admitted, watching the stranger through thick lashes. "I suppose it was silly of me, believing in a fairytale like that."

She turned away from him, picking up things here and there, trying to look busy. The Doctor took an awkward step towards her, wanting to say something but coming up blank. Silence spread between them, and he wondered what she was thinking. Did she actually believe he was real? Or was she telling herself she had imagined everything...

He could still turn around and walk away now. He had met her, seen that she had a pair of capable hands that kept her in business... But that wasn't why he had come.

Ignoring the bad feeling that was developing in the pit of his stomach, he reached out for her, and touched her shoulder lightly. "Well, I'm here now. You could come with me..."

Idris dropped the metal appliance she held in her hand with a loud clang, but continued refusing to face the Doctor. "You don't mean that," she told him decisively, picking up something else and moving a few paces away from him.

"But I do! I never joke about these matters." Her stubbornness made him smile. Her refusal to come with him was, to him, just an invitation to try harder to convince her.

"The whole universe," he raised his arms demonstratively, forgetting for a moment that the sky was grey and dominated by skyscrapers, "all of time and space – I'm offering all of it to you."

"But why me?" She turned around at last, dropping her busy hands to her sides.

Alarm bells rang once again in the Doctor's mind, but he had never been one to care much about what his conscience was trying to tell him. He had set out to show Idris the stars and he would not leave her until he had succeeded in doing so. "Why not?" He replied cheekily, but as the words passed his lips, the TARDIS seemed to have caught Idris' eye and she was stepping towards it as if drawn by magnetic attraction.

"The Police Box." Her voice had gone soft again, her advance slowing down a little. Over her shoulder she looked back at the Doctor for reassurance, which he gave her with a nod and a smile.

"A TARDIS model TT Type 40, Mark 3," he explained proudly, forgetting for a moment that these facts would not be of any relevance to any human; but Idris nodded excitedly and crossed the last short distance between herself and the spaceship. As she tentatively placed a hand on the blue wood, the Doctor could have sworn there was a glow emanating from his box. Idris must have seen, or felt it too, for again her eyes found the Doctor's.

He, in the meantime, had stepped closer to Idris and the TARDIS, smiling at the sight before him. What a good pair they made, both intact, he thought. Idris had not disappointed with her personality and interest, and he was quite sure he had made the right decision to ask her.

Once she had circled the small blue box once, the Doctor snapped his fingers to open the doors, inviting Idris to explore further. Face aglow, she stepped inside, marveling at the vast interior. "It's..."

The Doctor expected the usual '… bigger on the inside', but was instead met with a breathy "_beautiful_!" and he watched with a widening smile as Idris practically ran to the console and circled that, too. With her first touch, she elicited a soft humming noise from the spaceship, vibrating comfortingly as the various appliances that met with Idris' fingers seemed to glow a little brighter.

The TARDIS apparently more than approved of its newest guest and both the boy and his box knew all too well that her decision had been made. As the Doctor slowly walked up to the console to join his newest companion, the doors of the blue box closed behind him.

_A new adventure had begun._


End file.
